You'll have to excuse Issac Gunn if you see him grinning uncontrollably. Baseball season just does that to him. If you come across Jared Haynes and he jokes around a bit much, please forgive him. He's just happy to be alive.
You can't blame either one of them for being happy. Both are seniors at Pleasant Valley, in the middle of their final high school baseball seasons. Both are in the primes of their lives, and the similarities that will bind the two varsity athletes forever don't end there.
Last fall, both were in near-fatal car accidents during the Raiders' first football playoff run in 23 years. As a result, both of their football careers were cut short.
From what each of their doctors told them, neither should be alive today. If alive, neither should be walking.
Issac and Jared - they're just glad to be here.
Glad to be walking again. Glad to be playing ball again.
Glad to be sitting in the Pleasant Valley locker room during school hours - out of history and geography class respectively - to talk about how glad they are.
Cut short
Gunn admits that he lives for the sports he plays. By that logic, his vital signs are at a yearlong high during each baseball season.
"He lights up when you mention baseball," his coach, Jeff Davis, says of the pitcher. "He likes football, but he absolutely lights up when you say baseball."
You can tell when you talk to him. Baseball means something to this kid, and he's even giddier this season.
Almost dying and missing most of his senior football season only intensified his love and appreciation of the game.
"I still limp around a little bit, but I just love baseball season," he says. "There ain't no way I can just sit and watch baseball."
He almost didn't have a choice.
On Sept. 8 of last year, Gunn was in the back seat of friend's and teammate Taylor McGinnis's car on the way back from Trade Day flea market in Collinsville. Gunn, who was asleep, says he doesn't remember exactly what happened, but that he woke up to the car falling off of a 34-foot ravine between Collinsville and Sand Rock.
McGinnis, who also wasn't playing football because of a previously broken leg, had fallen asleep at the wheel.
Gunn says that if not for last year's drought, the ravine would have been filled with water, and they probably would have drowned.
"I just remember blacking in and out, not much more," he says. "They said I had a concussion."
Gunn's right talus bone was shattered, according to what his doctors told him.
"The doctors told me that without the proper surgery, I'd never be able to walk again," he says. "Even with the surgery, I might not be able to, they said."
Just two games into the 2007 football season, with Pleasant Valley at 2-0 for the first time in Gunn's memory, his days at fullback for the powder blue and red were done.
Davis, who also coaches football, says the team lost more than just its starting fullback when Gunn went out. The team lost its leader.
"It hurt tremendously," Davis says. "In essence, it gave us a chance to get another look at other kids, but we felt that Issac was our key, because we could do so many things with him."
The players rallied around their fallen teammate. During the first game after Gunn's wreck, the team hung his jersey on the sideline. Then they surprised him at home after the game.
"Almost the whole team showed up," Gunn says. "We just stayed up all night celebrating. That really made me feel good about myself, to know that people care about you."
The players had to adjust to losing another player later in the season.
On Oct. 24, with Pleasant Valley in the midst of its first playoff run in decades, Haynes got into a wreck on New Liberty Road in Wellington that left him with a broken pelvis bone, separated pubis bone, bruised lung and bruised tailbone. His twin brother Ryan, who was also in the car and ironically was Gunn's replacement at fullback, walked away unharmed.
Doctors told Jared Haynes it could take up to a year to recover. He was out for the final three games of football season, including the Raiders' loss to Red Bay in the first round of the playoffs.
Amazingly, not only did Haynes defy what his doctors said was in the realm of possibility, but he did it in only a few months time. By January, he was back practicing in basketball.
He's the starting third baseman for the Raider baseball team.
"The way he came back was impressive," Davis says. "Issac wasn't so fortunate."
From the time of his wreck in September until the beginning of February, Gunn was forced to wear a cast and walk on crutches. With baseball practice approaching, doctors were only telling him they wanted him to work on movement, and to forget about the notion of playing baseball.
He didn't listen.
"I said forget about that," Gunn says. The doctors put him in a boot, and after three weeks they were saying that they couldn't believe how well he was walking.
Within a few more weeks' time, he was back where he was happiest - the baseball diamond with his Pleasant Valley teammates.
Risky return
It didn't take long for Gunn to show that, even hobbled, he was serious about coming back for baseball season.
"I got a hit in my first at-bat." Gunn says, recalling how he had to limp to first base. "Ran around the bases and everything. Even stole third on a pass ball."
Of course, playing with a limp could lead to the possibility of re-injuring the bone. Gunn doesn't care, though.
"If I do (re-injure it), I'm gonna be doing it during something I love to do," Gunn says with an almost rebellious grin. It's as if each time he laces his cleats up he's proving his doctors wrong.
But his coach takes it a little more seriously. The topic of re-injuring Gunn's leg comes up with Davis, and the stoic, businesslike expression that seems to be stuck on his face turns a little more concerned.
Worrisome, even.
He sighs, sits back in his seat, and it's not hard to tell that he thinks about the very topic every time Gunn takes a step in practice or claps for his teammates from the dugout.
"I worry about him," Davis says. "Am I scared for him? No, because I know where his heart is. I worry about him like a daddy, but I'm not scared for him."
It's not as if Davis has a choice in the matter. Gunn says he would play anyway, determined not to sit and watch his teammates play without him anymore.
"It's probably the worst feeling in my life," Gunn says. "I played for three years of varsity football, only won four games. We win the first two games of the year in my last season, then I have to sit and watch the rest of it. It was awful."
Enthusiastic or not, Gunn is still subject to Davis' coaching and conditioning. And the coach has been around long enough to know his player's limitations.
"I'm not going to hurt him," Davis says. "All my kids will tell you that when it comes to stuff like that, I'm ultra-conservative. I have my pitchers on pitch counts, and we're not going over it."
Davis has steadily raised Gunn's pitch count since the beginning of the season. He started Issac off with a 25-pitch limit, and that has been raised to 45.
If not for the injury, Davis says Gunn would probably be on about a 65- to 70-pitch limit at this point in the season.
"Very rarely will I let a kid go over 80 (pitches), 100 percent or not." Davis says.
"I'm not gonna hurt him," he reiterates. "That's just not my philosophy. If I do something to jeopardize the safety of one of these kids, I'm not worth a grain of salt."
As for Jared, playing most of basketball season has him in top shape for baseball. Davis knows he doesn't have to worry about him as much, except for maybe keeping him serious enough for game time.
"Jared is Jared," Davis says. "You'd have to know him to know what I'm talking about."
He's talking about the way in which Jared makes it a point to keep his teammates entertained.
"Jared's our clown," Davis says. "He's the one who keeps everybody lose and happy and free. He's handled his situation well."
He's so laid back, in fact, that he can't control his laughter when telling the story of how he needed to be rushed to UAB for an emergency spleen removal due to internal bleeding.
"That's the cool part of my story," Jared says. Then he shows his scar without having to be prompted.
"I feel good. Don't have any pain or anything. Fully recovered," he says. He's also driving again.
"It's an older car," he says. "I call it the 'shagwagon.'"
For Bradey
The number 14 is on the hat of every Pleasant Valley baseball player. It's the baseball number of late White Plains student Bradey Munroe, who died on Feb. 20 after battling cancer for less than a year.
Davis says it was the players' idea.
"They said, 'Coach, some of us don't realize how lucky we are and how good we have it,'" Davis says. "We put it on the front of our hats, so that when we look at each other, we can thank God for each other - that we still have Issac, and we still have Jared, and we still have Ryan.
"We still have those kids. How fortunate we are."
Gunn and Jared each know exactly how lucky they are. No one needs to remind them.
"Of course you appreciate it more once you go out there on the field," Jared says. "Especially when you hear about kids like Bradey. Just stuff like that reminds you how good you got it now and how lucky you are to be out there playing.
"But you can't always worry about it."
Gunn and Jared are more worried about how the team is performing than trite things like the ability to walk.
"We have a chance to be really good if we can pull ourselves together," Gunn says. His coach wasn't kidding when he called him a leader. "We're in a slump right now, but we have a chance to be awesome."
With the doctors telling him he might never walk again, Gunn knows that each time he steps onto the diamond is a gift. He plans on soaking it up as much as he can.
"I'll never forget this," he says. "After spending six months of my senior year on crutches - it's hard looking back to think that - I'll never forget it. Just gotta enjoy it while you can."
